Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Down the stretch

In all of the time that we were at the beach last week (and on the road back and forth, obviously) my wife and I watched very little television. It is one of our favorite leisure activities to share, and you would think the abundance of leisure time on an actual vacation would lend itself to catching up on said activity, but we managed to avoid it all the same. We did watch a movie one night (about which more tomorrow) and we indulged in a couple of episodes of Chopped on another night, but outside of that we sat around playing Cards Against Humanity, or went out for ice cream and stargazing, or did crossword puzzles together, or read, or went to bed early simply because we could.

One of the limiting factors on our television consumption was the fact that we were rooming with the bino for the week. We gave the matter some thought upon our arrival at the beach house but couldn’t identify a better place to stick the bino’s crib than in the corner of the room we had claimed for ourselves (partly because we forgot to pack the baby monitor and needed to keep him closeby, but not in the room next door with the little guy and little girl because we worried all three would disturb each other too much, &c. &c.) so there he stayed, and whereas most nights at home we wind up lying in our bed and watching some tv before calling it a night, we weren’t about to try turning on the set in our beach house room after 7:30 p.m. when the bino went down for the night. (And he still didn’t have the best week’s worth of sleep all the same, which is a subject best left un-lingered on.) Nevertheless, my wife did confess that she missed the sensation of climbing under the covers, turning on an Orioles game, and drifting off to the dulcet tones of the Camden Yards booth team.

In fact, we were pretty unplugged all week and neither of us bothered to check MLB.com for the box scores or the standings or anything. Granted, it’s rare that things change hugely day-to-day, or even week-to-week, which is one of those things people either love or hate about baseball, I suppose. I was, I admit, a tiny bit disappointed to learn, upon our return home, that I had been oblivious to an eight-game losing streak the Red Sox endured throughout our entire vacation. But better late schadenfreude than never.

Beyond the week off from obsessively following the back-and-forths of the AL East, it’s been about six weeks since I last gave any blogspace to baseball-type thoughts, and things are similar to where they were then. The Os are still on top, with an even more comfortable lead, while the Yankees have moved up to second place thanks to a combo of decent strings of victories and the fading of the Blue Jays. New York is still not situated in a wild card position (it continues to be All AL West, all day), but they are at least still within striking distance, at the moment.

This could all change by the weekend, of course. But as it stands unless something historic and monumental happens, I probably won’t make blog fodder out of baseball until October or so, when definitive things can and must be said.

Last night my wife and I did in fact turn on an O’s game as we were settling into bed, as it happened. The O’s were winning in a rout (as were the Yankees, for that matter) so it was non-stressful viewing. I pointed out to my wife that MASN has already started a promo campaign using the “we’re playing in September, but playing for October” line. And I asked her if that was killing her a little bit, with the whole jinx-avoidance mentality. She admitted it was somewhat unsettling. I hope for her sake that things eventually get to the point where she can just enjoy the ride, whatever “things” and “point” that might entail. I’m not going to try to name them, because that would be a goocher for sure.